Sealer's Strike of 1902, The (The Sealers Gained the Strike)

DESCRIPTION: "Attention, all ye fishermen, and read this ballad down, And hear about the sealer's strike the other day in town." The sealers, led by "brave Colloway," unite and present their demands. A. B. Morine secures their demands
AUTHOR: Johnny Burke (1851-1930)
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Murphy, Songs Sung by the Old Time Sealers of Many Years Ago)
KEYWORDS: ship hunting strike labor-movement
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Mar 8, 1902 - Beginning of the Sealer's Strike
Mar 12, 1902 - Sealers' demands granted
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Ryan/Small-HaulinRopeAndGaff, p. 64, "The Sealer's Strike of 1902"; p. 63, "The Sealers Gained the Strike" (2 texts); also p. 66, "The Luck Went With the Sealers Since Brave Colloway Led the Strike" (1 text, a sequel to the above)
ADDITIONAL: James Murphy, editor, _Songs Sung by Old-TIme Sealers of Many Years Ago_, James Murphy Publishing, 1925 (PDF available from Memorial University of Newfoundland web site), p. 20, "The Sealers Strike of 1902" (1 text)
Johnny Burke (John White, Editor), _Burke's Ballads_, no printer listed, n.d. (PDF available on Memorial University of Newfoundland web site), p. 14, "The Sealers Gained the Strike" (1 text); also p. 15, "The Luck Went With the Sealers Since Brave Colloway Led the Strike" (1 text, a sequel to the above)
Johnny Burke (William J. Kirwin, editor), _John White's Collection of Johnny Burke Songs_, Harry Cuff Publications, St. John's, 1981, #22, p. 39, "The Sealers Gained the Strike" (1 text); #23, p. 40, "The Luck Went With the Sealers Since Brave Colloway Led the Strike" (1 text)
Roud #V44591
NOTES [3053 words]: Although all sources for this are printed and literary, the divergences between the first two texts in Ryan/Small-HaulinRopeAndGaff may imply oral transmission. Murphy, who published the earliest version, seemingly was unaware of the attribution to Burke, even though they worked together frequently; possibly Burke didn't want to have his name listed and be seen as pro-sealer. For a brief biography of Johnny Burke, see the notes to "The Kelligrew's Soiree."
Sealing was a seasonal industry based largely on ships, with crews of sealers going out on each ship and getting a share of the profits on the seals that were harvested. By 1902, the year of the sealer's strike, this tradition dated back for several lifetimes.
According to Cadigan, p. 170, prior to the strike, the number of sealers who were able to go out each year had been declining -- with the seal herd shrinking, and the hunt necessarily being moved from small schooners and sloops to the large steamers that could carry many men and seal pelts, there simply weren't as many berths for sealers. And the steamers were expensive, and the industry was in a recession, with some companies going out of business (Ryan-Ice, p. 183, though he points out on pp. 183-184 that the problem wasn't as bad as they claimed), so the owners used various techniques to reduce their costs (Busch, p. 76; on p. 78, he argues that the basic problem was the weakness and specialization of the Newfoundland economy, which was being hurt by loss of revenue from cod). In return for granting a man a berth on a sealer, the owners required a so-called "coaling fee," for instance (Ryan-Ice, p. 343), and forced the men to buy certain equipment at inflated prices -- a technique known as the "crop" (Candow, p. 102. At least the owners had to cover the deficit if the sealers didn't take enough seals to cover the crop). The Appendix below describes the "crop" in more detail.
An even more objectionable way of raising money was "berthing fees" -- charging sealers a fee to serve on the sealing steamer, which would be deducted from their earnings. And the owners collectively decided how much pelts would be worth in that year, so the owners had come close to creating a "company store" type situation: They set the pay, and they decided what to bill the sealers for participating. Sealers on successful steamers still earned a reasonable payment -- but if a ship had a bad year, the sealers might end up with nothing at all. And the work was hard, dirty, and dangerous (the sanitary facilities didn't deserve the name, e.g.). And the ships were excessively crowded, meaning that the men into close contact, so it was easy for them to decide on collective action.
Worse, the owners were paying the sealers a smaller fraction of the value of the seals: "The Sealers were now only getting one third [of the value] of their catch in the steamers, whereas formerly in the sailing vessels they got one half... of their voyage" (Chafe, p. 38).
England, pp. 53-54, writing two decades after the strike, declares, "I have never known a country where employers enjoyed such a sinecure as in Newfoundland. Labour, there, has hardly begun to dream that it has any rights. And the game of exploitation goes merrily on." But even Newfoundland's disorganized sealers needed to eat! And there had been some labor activism in the years around 1900, although it involved trade unions rather than the highly individualistic sealers (Busch, pp. 82-83; Ryan-Ice, pp. 329-342, has a catalog of these labor actions).
As a result, in 1902, "211 sealers of the SS Ranger, a wooden-hulled steamer [for which see the notes to "First Arrival from the Sea Fishery S. S. Fogota, 1912"], left their vessel in St John's to protest their wages and sparked a wider strike by sealers from other vessels" (Cadigan, p. 170). "Men poured out of the various vessels so quickly that presumably there was some prearrangement" (Busch, p. 83) -- but no one has offered any actual evidence for this.
The two sides were far apart -- the merchants wanted to pay only $2.40 for each hundredweight (112 pounds) of seal fat, down from $3.25; the strikers privately wanted at least $4, and asked for more (Cadigan, p. 171). Both sides appealed to the government -- the owners for troops (Busch, p. 87), the sealers for support. The sealers, interestingly, went to the governor, i. e. the British representative, Sir Cavendish Boyle, rather than the head of the elected Newfoundland government, Premier Sir Robert Bond (Busch, p. 84; Ryan-Ice, pp. 363-365, thinks that was based on the support that the previous governor, Henry McCallum, had given the sealers, although Boyle did not prove as helpful. The irony is that Bond eventually came to be regarded as one of the most honest and capable of Newfoundland Prime Ministers. Perhaps the problem was that Bond and the sealers' spokesman A. B. Morine were anything but cordial -- which is actually another sign of Bond's honesty, because Morine was utterly corrupt).
Morine, who eventually represented the sealers, was born in Nova Scotia but had come to Newfoundland in 1883 to edit a newspaper (Cadigan, p. 148). He first ran for office in 1885 (DictNewfLabrador, p. 232; he lost on his first try but soon won a by-election). He was admitted to the bar in 1894, held various ministries after that, including Finance Minister 1897-1898 (DictNewfLabrador, p. 231), even serving as acting prime minister for a time while prime minister James Winter was out of the country (Harding, p. 82). During that time, he produced a government plan to sell or (mostly) give away a huge chunk of the island to Robert Reid, who was building Newfoundland Railway, and whom Morine represented (Hanrahan, pp. 11-12; for the Newfoundland Railway, and this deal, see also the notes to "The Wreck of the Steamship Ethie"). When Winter got back and found what Morine had done, he "angrily demanded that Morine resign. This earned Morine the somewhat dubious honor of being publicly disgraced twice in one year. Winter went so far as to describe his erstwhile lieutenant as 'the greatest scoundrel who ever entered the Narrows'" (Harding, p. 82); Harding himself (p. 84), sums him up as "one of the most thoroughly unscrupulous opportunists to have ever disgraced a public office." I doubt anyone would disagree.
An editorial cartoon of the time (reproduced on p. 55 of Penney) shows Morine dressed as a saint with a halo -- but kneeling on a box labelled "Receiver General and Reid's Solicitor," Reid being the company which had the railroad franchise. This hints strongly that what Morine was praying for was, frankly, to receive even more graft. Similarly, a bit of political doggerel asked,
Will you let Reid's hireling lawyer
Barter homes and hearths away? [this because Morine's plan gave huge swathes of land to Reid's railroad]
Will you let him sell his country,
Sell you all for place and pay? (Hiller/Neary, p. 140).
In the election of 1901, after Morine's machinations came to light, Sir Robert Bond's party won 32 of 36 seats in the House of Assembly based on its opposition to Morine -- the most lopsided election result in Newfoundland history (Noel, pp. 30-31; the Reid company had campaigned for Winter's and Morine's conservatives, which probably made things worse; Penney, p. 70). The Reid company was forced to reorganize (it wasn't broke, but changing its structure made it easier for it to make deals; Penney, p. 70), and Morine was in disgrace. In 1906, the Reid organization would offer Morine $10,000 per year to absent himself from Newfoundland (Penney, p. 94). Morine went to Toronto for six years, then spent the remaining years of his life moving back and forth from Canada to Newfoundland (depending, I think, on where he was wanted less); toward the end, he spent much of his energy campaigning for "Confederation" -- i.e. having Newfoundland join Canada (DictNewfLabrador, pp. 232-233). But that was much later.
Morine's career was so complex that his entry in DictNewfLabrador, which is one of the longest if not the longest in the book, doesn't even mention his part in the sealer's strike. Morine came to represent the sealers even though he was "clearly part of the power structure" of Newfoundland (had the deal with the railroads worked out as intended, Morine expected to become Prime Minister; Penney, p. 66) and in fact he had a low opinion of most Newfoundlanders (Busch, p. 84). "The sealers had little choice, however, and Morine was colorful and able" (Busch, pp. 84-85). And, of course, Morine wanted the role as a way to clear his name and start rebuilding his political career.
At first, the owners wouldn't even meet with Morine, and set out to starve out the sealers (many of whom came from the outports and had no way to survive except by charity; Candow, p. 103); many ended up sleeping in the streets (in Newfoundland, in March! -- Busch, p. 85). One of the crustiest of captains, Arthur Jackman (for whom see, e.g., "The Old Polina") prepared to take the Terra Nova out to sea even so, and Sam Blandford (for whom see "Sealer's Song (I)") prepared to follow in the Neptune (Ryan-Ice, p. 344, attributes this to a rivalry between Jackman and Blandford -- Blandford wouldn't let Jackman get away unescorted). Things weren't so easy for the Neptune; the sealers put a hawser around the ship to hold her in place. Blandford cut it and got out (Busch, pp. 85-86; Ryan-Ice, p. 344), but the sealers were mostly successful in getting their point across. What's more, many ships couldn't sail because the firemen who kept the engines running had walked out with the sealers (Ryan-Ice, p. 344).
Morine apparently managed to convince Premier Bond to accept the compromise price of $3.50 per hundredweight and an end to berthing fees (Busch, p. 86; Cadigan, p. 171; Candow, p. 104), although the "crop" remained.
Not every sealer was satisfied with this offer; there were die-hards who held out for their original demands. They tried to prevent other sealers from boarding the ships. But, by this time, the town was concerned about all the sealers who were wandering about with no place to stay and nothing to do; the police had been called out to prevent disorder (Ryan-Ice, p. 345). Fears of violence had apparently caused a judge to order the saloons closed, but there was no actual bloodshed (Busch, p. 86). There weren't enough extremists to keep things going. And so the strike ended. There had been a slight delay in the start of the season, but the ships went out just two days after their expected start -- even the Terra Nova and Neptune came back to take full crews aboard (Ryan-Ice, p. 345).
It's fascinating to note that the most significant sealing captain of them all, Abram Kean (for whom see "Captain Abram Kean") had been crossing swords with Morine for a decade and a half; as early as 1885, they had contested a parliamentary seat, although Kean (who had a rather casual attitude toward the truth) claims they were the best of friends for decades (Kean, pp. 13-15).
Not every sealer was convinced that the berthing fees were gone; Thomas Bragg in his oral history complained that "You'd get a $9 crop, but you had to pay $12. See, one time you had to pay $3 for your berth. Then they got a union and they said they took off the $3. But what they did was give you a $9 crop and you used to have to pay $12. You were still paying $3 for your berth" (Ryan-Last, p. 232). This isn't entirely fair; the extra $3 was, in a way, insurance for all the times when the sealers could not pay off the $9 crop, but it's true enough, as the appendix shows.
Interestingly, all the accounts of the strike I've seen in histories of Newfoundland mention Morine, but very little is said about Calloway/Colloway, mentioned in the song as the leader of the strike (Ryan/Small-HaulinRopeAndGaff's first version spells it "Calloway," the second and third "Colloway"). According to Busch, p. 83, his name was Simon Calloway, but that's all Busch says about him. And the two other sources I checked both have different spellings. According to Ryan-Ice, p. 342, "The sealers -- under their leaders Mercer, Robert Hall from Halls Town near Clarke's Beach, Conception Bay, and Simeon Calloway from Pool's Island, Bonavista Bay -- demanded to see the governor, Sir Cavendish Boyle, to whom they spoke" (Albert Mercer of Bay Roberts was the man who had led the sealers off the Ranger). DictNewfLabrador, p. 185, has yet a third version of the name, Simeon Kelloway (while saying that others wrote it "Calloway." Interestingly, there was also a sealing captain named "Kelloway").
Perhaps the reason Colloway doesn't get much mention is that he died the year after the strike. His entry in DictNewfLabrador doesn't say much else; he lived from 1858 to 1903, was born in Pool's Island, was an early settler of Badger's Quay, and died in the latter town. His ship was the Vanguard, under George Barbour; for the Vanguard, see the notes to "Arrival of 'Aurora,' 'Diana,' 'Virginia Lake,' and 'Vanguard,' Loaded"; for George Barbour, see also "The Greenland Disaster (I)."
The positive effects of the strike may not have lasted long; according to Ryan-Ice, p. 353, "Their brief success did little to improve their situation; although their incomes improved following the strike, the failure of the cod fishery in Norway, which had created an increased demand for seal oil, was the most important reason for this." And the sealing companies found ways to hit back; in 1905, they started having annual meetings to decide on their rules (Ryan-Ice, p. 185); obviously this collusion also made it easier for them to impose conditions on the individual sealers. It doesn't appear the sealers gained much money from the strike. On the other hand, they didn't lose much, and the owners realized that the sealers needed more consideration (Ryan-Ice, p. 347). And the strike did encourage Joseph Coaker, who later became a major labor organizer in Newfoundland (Busch, p. 87; for Coaker, see "Coaker's Dream").
It appears one song about Morine (not this one) may have gone into tradition; England, p. 128 quotes a sealer singing something called "Come on Down, Morine."
This song is apparently right in regarding the strike as a big deal for the sealers. England, p. 248, tells of hearing about it from senior sealer Joe Stirge more than twenty years later. Stirge also had a version of the story about the Neptune being forced to stay in port when the sealers tied a cable to her, although Stirge didn't name the ship. Maybe he wanted to keep it secret, because the Terra Nova, on which he was embarked when he talked to England, was also one of the strikebreakers.
APPENDIX: The "Crop"
StoryKirwinWiddowson, p. 122, defines the "crop" (usually pronounced "cha(h)p") as "in sealing or fishing, the personal equipment or supplies issued against the profits of the 'voyage.'" Their first known usage is from 1854.
On pp. 122-123, they cite several derived usages: the "Crop Note," i.e. the paper form which the sealer was issued to track the spending; the "Cropping Shed," the place where the usual sealing supplies were stored by a merchant (in effect, a "store within a store" for sealers); "Cropping Time," the period before a sealing trip when sealers took their crop notes around to purchase their supplies.
Winsor, p. 113, shows an example of a Crop Note which shows how it all worked. It is from March 11, 1940, for the ship S.S. Ungava, supplied by Job Brothers. It is a standard pre-printed form, with the name of the ship and the supplier printed but the name of the sealer and the date hand-written; there is also an account number which I would guess was stamped in. Below this is a blank form for the merchants to fill in. The one in Winsor shows $3 for rubbers, $1.55 for oil jacket, $0.80 for tobacco, $2.25 for blanket, $1.05 for a fall jacket, $0.20 for a towel, $.015 for matches, grand total $9. The next line is "add 1/3," or $3, for a total of $12.00. Then $0.20 is added without explanation, for a total "tally" of $12.20. This was the amount to be taken from the sealer's payment. At the bottom is a pre-printed line, "CREDIT by share seals." This was the standard share of the sealing profit that each sailor on a particular ship got. In this case, the share was $53.83. So the final lines (although there weren't written this way) should read something like this
$ 53.83 SHARE SEALS
-$12.20 TALLY FOR CROP
----------
$ 41.63 SEALER'S TAKE HOME PAY
So it would appear the sealer was issued the note, and took it around to the merchants who wrote in what he bought, until he reached his $9 maximum. Once that was spent, the sealer was on his own for buying things. (I would guess that the $0.15 in matches at the end of this particular note was what the sealer bought to bring the total to exactly $9 -- if you didn't spend the whole $9, too bad; you didn't get any money back.)
The patent unfairness in this is that the sealer got only $9 worth of merchandise (which often was sold at inflated prices, because the merchants knew just when the sealers would come to town and could mark things up accordingly), but were charged $12 for it. The only good news is, if the ship they were on had a bad year and the sealers earned less than $12, they did not have to make up the difference; that was a loss to the outfitters. Still, it was a clear $3-per-sealer profit for the outfitters every time the ship sailed and pulled in a decent number of seals. How often did that happen? In 1940, the Ungava took 28,781 seals and the sealers earned $58.83. That means that, for the Ungava, the break-even point for sealers was around 6000 seals. (It would be different for other ships, since they would have different numbers of sealers.) In her twelve years as a sealer, the Ungava took more than 6000 seals eleven times (Feltham, p. 145). So the crop was certainly profitable to her owners -- about $6000 profitable, which was a lot in pre-war Newfouondland. To be sure, the Ungava was an unusually large, well-built sealer, with two excellent captains (William Winsor and Peter Carter), so she was unusually profitable. Other ships didn't do nearly as well. Still, the "crop" was a much better deal for the owners than the sealers. - RBW
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